August 11/03 5:00 am - Hughes Wins Silver

Posted by Editor on 08/11/03

2003 Pan Am Games - Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

A report from Canadian Team Manager Luc Arsenault:

After 3 nice days in the mountain bike venue, it is back to Santo-Domingo for myself and Mathieu Toulouse. The venue (and the resort!) were great, but the weekend was not that easy. During practice time, an old hand injury came back to affect Toulouse's chance for a medal. After consulting no less then three doctors and two soigneurs, having the best possible "taping" done (and especially after making sure everything would be safe), we took the decision to take the start, as Mathieu still felt he could be in the hunt for a medal. The deal was simple: hunt for a good placing or don't take any risks. After one lap, Mathieu took the intelligent decision to pull out as he did not feel he was 100% in control in the most technical parts of the short 4.4km course. The race was finally won by USA rider Jeremiah BISHOP. Only 4 guys finished the event. On the women's side, Agentina's Jimena FLORIT took gold.

This morning, it was time trial time! We started the day very well with Clara Hughes getting a silver medal. She was very satisfied with that results, considering she was only 38 seconds behind the winner, USA's Kimberly BRUCKNER. On the men's side, Alexandre Cloutier had an excellent race until about 10km to go. Heat and humidity really started to affect him. At that point, he was still within 10 second of the leader. He just totally blew up while the top riders opened it up. He lost 2:55 in that section and finished 9th. Jean-FranÃƒÂ§ois Laroche, on his side, was disappointed with his 13th place. Just like his team-mate, he blew up with 10km to go and lost a lot of time. Also, just a few minutes before the start, he was hit by a car during the warm-up period; no major damage were done.

Tomorrow, we move to the track with the qualifying heats in the individual pursuits. Clara Hughes will again be one to watch, along with Mark Ernsting.